My new Nintendo DSi XL arrived with a 4.3V US wall charger. Soon, we will be on a vacation abroad and I need a solution for charging it where the outlet voltage is 220V. Before trying the USB port of my laptop, I wanted to make sure that it is safe to do so, provided the lower voltage of the native charger.

Maybe a stupid question, but have you checked that the US wall charger doesn't accept 220V too? (Of course, you'd still need a physical adapter... but you'd likely have one for your laptop anyway.)
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RawlingFeb 2 '11 at 12:28

@Rawling - Yes, I did. It is not a "travel charger", and I found many complaints about that online.
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ysapFeb 2 '11 at 12:31

Ouch, that sucks. Good luck with the laptop :)
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RawlingFeb 2 '11 at 12:37

@Blake - thanks for the link. I just found out that the connector itself is not a standard USB mini connector. Thus a proprietary compatible cable is required. This means that I need to buy one of the cables sold by Amazon and trust it to be OK to charge by 5V.
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ysapFeb 2 '11 at 21:12

Yes, that is what I used eventually. I purchased a USB charging cable from Amazon and used it with the car cigarette lighter charger and with my laptop USB output with no problems.
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ysapMar 8 '11 at 22:27

If you're getting this just for your DS, make sure to price it against just getting a DS charger for the region you're going to. A voltage converter can easily run $20, if you want one of the good ones that don't overheat when used for more than 20 minutes, but an OEM DSi charger can be found for as low as 5€ if they're available where you're going, and non-OEM even cheaper.
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user2640Mar 8 '11 at 21:03

1

@Joe Wreschnig - you can actually find a fine step-down converter for about $6 in dealextreme.com. My problem was that I did not have the time to wait for the 3-4 weeks shipping. Additionally, the purpose of the question was actually to make sure that the 5V charging is not harmful for the device (expecting 4.3V)
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ysapMar 8 '11 at 22:29

We live in NZ which only has 220-240v and we bought our 25th Anniversary DSiXL online with a USB cable, which works very well.

The good thing about charging via the PC is that the PC adapter protects the unit from both the voltage variables and the cycles or Hz variables which can often damage wall chargers when coupled with voltage/travel adapters.

Make sure if you are planning on using a voltage travel adapter that it is also capable of the different cycles/Hz ratings too.